Asian Girls | Dota Guide and Strategy

Hi, my name is queenofdidas. I wrote this guide because i did not find any SandKing guide updated for the current ganking metagame and the introduction of bottle. This is basically my first guide so all comments are valued and appreaciated.

Sandking had always been a hero that captured my heart. I remembered those days where my friends and I started DotA, and Sandking was a pick that inspires fear into minds of many. Perhaps the sole reason that this is happening is due to the fact that we did not know how to stop the Burrowstrike and Epicenter combo. As you know, if Sandking casts Burrowstrike and Epicenter successfully on a hero, he will usually get himself a well-deserved kill.

Now, having 10 months of experience at DotA-Allstars, I still think that Sandking is a very, very great hero on the edge of imbaness. In 6.37 league mode, Sandking is a top pick. In 6.41 ap draft mode, Sandking is also a top pick. 6.43b Extended league mode, Sandking is still a top pick. Why? Main reasons are that he has a combined power of a nuke, stun, and blink in the form of Burrowstrike, a great farming skill with Caustic Finale, and the infamous, game-breaking, giant AOE spell, Epicenter.

He dosen’t need many items either. Get him a Bottle, Boots, and Blink Dagger and he still can gank very effectively with the mind-wrecking power of Burrowstrike and sometimes Epicenter. His extra gold can be invested towards team-oriented items such as Observer or Sentry Wards.

Version 1.0-Guide posted.
Version 1.5-Added wards to guide.
Version 1.6-Edited most spelling mistakes.
Version 1.7-Changed 50% of guide.
Version 1.8-Edited most if not all of the spelling/layout errors.
Version 2.0-First update after HGC.
Version 2.1-Changed guide according the review.

1.Basics Of Crixalis

A.Introduction

As you can see, Sandking is located at twitlight tarven besides the infamous axe.

B.Attributes

C.Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths
Is a great team oriented hero
Have a low cooldown stun with a blink like effect thrown in.
Epicenter is a very powerful skill that can easliy decide the outcome of a team battle.
Can clear creep waves very fast with caustic finale.

Weaknesses
Pretty low strength gain for a strength hero
Being melee, he will be harrased early game.
Main skills force him into heart of battle and he’s not that sturdy.
Easily counter-able ult is the most important thing for you to get off.

2.Skills Build and Description

A.Skills Descriptions

This is one of your bread and butter skills and what makes you kill and gank so well. Basically, this is your escape mechanism, 1.65 second stun and nuke skill with a Blink like effect thrown in. When you hit a hero with burrowstrike, the hero will “fly” up in the air and render itself invulnerable for 1 second. After landing back onto the ground, he will be stunned for 1.65 second. You can also burrow up hills or terrains to escape your chasing-enemies while your enemies cry after a failed gank.

One thing to note about Burrowstrike is that if a hero is already stunned by Impale, Fissure, Ravage, Frostbite, Overgrowth and Ensnare and you try to stun him, he will not get stunned by your Burrowstrike neither will he take any damage. A minor issue that needs to be taken note of. By the way, you can also Burrowstrike up and down inpassable terrains and even to unexplored areas covered by the fog of war. Burrowstrike+Teleport out, any one? Try to Burrowstrike to places where no heros have vision of you.

Your secondary escape skill is very inferior to Burrowstrike. However, If your enemy does not have any AOE stuns, then this is a pretty good skill. If the enemy AOE stuns are absent, and Burrowstrike is on cooldown, then I normally use Sandstorm and wait for the perfect situation to Blink/Burrowstrike to safety while waiting for its cooldown. But still, this is a very situational skill.

Recently, I have seen many Sandking players getting Sandstorm+Burrowstrike. Whenever a creep waves approached, they would use Sandstorm until the creep moves to another location. This is a very, very bad strategy because once they get wards, you have completely wasted your valuable skill points on Sandstorm. Also, it pushes the creeps too far. If you are with a competent ally, he WILL get almost all the creep kills and you get almost none. Moreover, it’s also relatively easy for the enemy to deny creeps.

One more thing to note, the actual AOE of Sandstorm is very deceiving. On one hand, it might look it takes up half the screen but in reality it only affects a small area. So, what is the real AOE of sandstorm? The picture show sandking sandstorm at level 3, which is 300 AOE. I used leshrac lvl 3 split earth for comparision, which is also 300 Aoe. Anything outside it are just animation and enemies that stand there wont be dealt any damage.

You can also use Sandstorm for evasive tactics though. Hit it quickly to evade projectiles like storm bolt, that last ranged attack your enemy sent towards you to finish your 10hps off, or just to make them stop and waste an aoe nuke or stun. Sandstorm is a great way to confuse someone. When most people see SK sandstorm, they think wow…this guy is actually gonna be a sitting duck for me, how nice. So, hit it briefly, and make them cast something like Split earth. Leave the sandstorm almost immediately, or if quick enough as you see him stop and start to cast. A good player can force the stun here and render it wasted. Waiting for burrow/blink to come up against heroes that can’t do anything against sandstorm is okay somtimes, but usually good lineups will have something they can do to you. Judge the situation. If you have allies coming or know more enemies won’t be here soon you can wait. Otherwise, even tapping sandstorm just to make that melee attacker stop for a second and then continue running can be effective. You should mention some hard counters against sandstorm like Zeus, who can bolt you and reveal you for 3 secs. Even if you sandstorm after…he’ll see you a couples seconds more and your quick hide is put to waste. His ult also reveals you for 3 secs, but it won’t hit you if you weren’t visible. A fact is that Wild Axe dosent hit you while you are in SandStorm. Surprised?

One of the best farming skills in the game. Sandking is melee range and does not have any farming abilities, thus this skill actually help you farm some items. You will be able to kill neutral creeps and clear creep waves to defend your tower fairly easy with Caustic Finale and Burrowstrike maxed. One thing to note is that this is an orb effect, so other orb effect items like S&Y or Eye of Skadi should not be purchased.

Many players I see get Battlefury to maximize his pushing potential. However, this is unneeded. I am positive Sandking can kill a whole creep wave in 4 seconds. With Battle Fury… Perhaps 3 seconds. Is it worth it? No, Heart is noticably better!

One of the best skills in the game, and the main reason why Sandking is a top pick in leagues. This skill make Sandking a very good initiator in team battles. Even at level 6, a successful Epicenter can easily get you a nice double kill provided they cant stop the channeling. This is one reason so many people fear Sandking. Getting epicenter off during a team battle can easily mean a win for the team battle and a push to the enemy tower or rax. Therefore, in team battles, your most important job is to make sure you execute epicenter perfectly.

This short YouTube clip clearly demonstrates the power of Epicenter in team battles. Sandking got a quadruple kill in this video!

When you press C for Epicenter, a green glow will come out from its tail, as seen in the picture, and will last for 2 seconds.

During these 2 seconds, you cannot issue any commands to your hero or Epicenter will be canceled. After the 2 sec casting time, nothing can stop Epicenter and when pulses are released, you will feel like your screen is shaking when that happens.

As of 6.48b, the time between the pulses is 0.35 seconds, and uses a timer. It used to be a 0.25-0.4 second polled wait(which means that it actually could have been longer than 0.4 seconds between pulses).

B.Skill Build and Reasons

Level 01 - BurrowStrike
Level 02 - Caustic Finale/Stats
Level 03 - BurrowStrike
Level 04 - Stats
Level 05 - BurrowStrike
Level 06 - Epicenter
Level 07 - BurrowStrike
Level 08 - SandStorm
Level 09 - Stats
Level 10 - Stats
Level 11 - Epicenter
Level 12 - Caustic Finale
Level 13 - Caustic Finale
Level 14 - Caustic Finale
Level 15 - Caustic Finale/Stats
Level 16 - Epicenter
17 to 22 - Stats
23 to 25 - SandStorm

Burrowstrike is maxed out first should be undebatable. Burrowstrike can help you gank a fragile hero at lvl 1, which is very common for a sandking. The stun and blink-like effect are too good for it to be maxed out later.

Stats over caustic finale early game is to make sure that you can cast Burrowstrike more to get kills thus giving u more lane control, as well as giving you more stats. Although you might say that Caustic Finale will help to harass melee heroes early game, I still believe that Stats are still better as Stats give u more health, damage, and Mana to use Burrowstrike. Also, Caustic Finale will push your creeps very far, something which you don’t want to happen early game.

Caustic Finale at level 12 because it is a good farming skills and can allow you to farm better and get better items. The money that you earned when getting Caustic Finale and not getting it is quite large. Also, you should generally let your carry hero farm the map. You might have to neutral sometimes, and Caustic Finale is a significant help. However, the main use is to help you to clear creeps quickly. Reason it is gotten at level 12 instead of 8 is that before the outer towers go down, all that caustic does is push things into them, you’d be better off last-hitting.

Taking a level of SandStorm at level 8 because you generally wont need to use sandstorm till level 8 or even high. Only a level is needed for escaping purposes. 20 seconds is more than enough to wait for Burrowstrike and Blink to cooldown before blinking/burrowstriking away.

Taking a level of caustic finale early is a good idea if there is a melee enemy hero in your lane. It affects all creeps in range, and makes the hero take 90 damage whenever he comes forward to last hit. 90 damage per creep is a lot early game. Still, The one or two melee heroes you are facing need to be actively at the wave last hitting. If they’re not, you getting caustic finale will just push and they will eventually be able to farm at their tower. They also need to have low enough regen items. If they have a ton, they can take the few caustics that him them and still creep. I think you need to use this skill mainly to prevent farming. If taking caustic in the lane cannot achieve this, then it is only doing more harm than good.

3.Item builds

A.Core build

Boots of Speed and Town Portal Scrolls are nessasary on all heros before Boots of Travel. Nuff said.

Dagger of Escape is just an amazing item for sandking. It just opens up a plethora of possibilities for Sandking as he can perform numerous strategies with it including the Epicenter+Blink combo. Besides being able to perfrom numerous strategies with dagger, dagger also doubles as an escape mechanism , and thriples as it allows you to catch you with enemies to finish them off with burrowstrike.

Empty Bottle is a must have on sandking. It solves sandking health and mana problems during ganks, thus allowing sandking to gank hardcore. It also doubles as it can store runes, which can grab your teams a handful of kills. With just boots and bottle, sandking can gank just as effectively or even even better than perhaps, other gankers like vengeful. For more information and strategies about bottles, do visit idalatop guide to using bottle wisely.

2 Bracers are for sandking to rambo more early game, as well as providing him some extra int gain.

Orbserver and Sentry Wards are good on sandking, weather you believe it anot. Sandking is a very good ward buyer, though not quite up to par with Vengeful Spirit and Veno, in my opinion. Sandking only needs bottle and oots early on and Dagger till the end of the game to be effective, but he can definately farm more than that with caustic. Other items are just icing on the cake. This means that Sandking can do better with just Bottle, Boots, and Dagger than a lot of other heros with just around 3k. His hp is also not that bad. All these things makes Sandking a good ward buyer. In team battles, if you manage to get off Epicenter and Burrowstrike on a few heros, you can rest in peace, but try not to die though.

Note
You should also get more small stat items if the time calls for it as sandking does put himself in difficult situation relatively early. Items like branches, circlets, extra bracers are good though.

B. Extension items

Boots of Travel is a good way to upgrade your Boots, since Power Treads is a no-no on Sandking. 90 Ms for chasing, escaping, and juking is ownage. The 1 minute cooldown teleport that even lets you teleport to creeps (much better than massing TP scrolls). This item will help you participate in almost every skirmishes, and you wont miss out any gank opportunities as ganking is 1 of the most important part of playing sandking. Furthermore, it gives new possibilities such as Burrowstrike+TP combo. Getting this item after core build will normally be great, though you can delay it till you get your first extension item if the situation calls for it.

Heart of Tarrasque is best tanking item in the game. No doubt. Heart of Tarrasque grants Sandking nearly 1000 HP to rambo, 11 hp regen, and 35 dmg, great for most offensive and defensive purposes. This is a great item to buy after finishing the core build. With your low HP for a strength hero, buying this item will definitely increase your tanking potential. Your job late game will be to get epicenter off and tank as much as possible while protecting your carry hero. This item will help you a lot in the tanking aspect. Therefore, I normally take this item after the core build and sometimes after BoT. Get the vitality booster first, then reaver, before proceeding to get the recipe.

Black King Bar is actually a very good item on SandKing, even though I regarded it as thrash before. Even after Blink Dagger, a BKB is leaps and bounds above any other item you could get next. It just makes you so much more versatile. You don’t have time in every fight to run behind a corner, get in a fog, charge up epicenter, and then blink back in. The battle will probably have moved away from the areas you can blink to by that time anyways. In ganks, you will be running into people’s face. They will see you, you will see them, and you will practically be able to hug you’re so close. Blink dagger won’t help you get off Epi here. When pushing, the enemy will see four heroes in the lane and Oh…where’s SK? They know you already have blink dagger if this isn’t the first time you’re going to be using it, so they will go find you, or back off. They’ll get obs. They’ll look behind the trees which is the only spot you could be waiting at, and pick you off. Good teams will do this! SK’s biggest downfall is that his amazing ult is amazingly easy to counter. A BKB allows you to use your Epi almost whenever you want. It allows you to open up a fight by burrowstriking as many targets as you can, BKB, and then epi. Now you still have blink to escape when you get blasted to almost no hps. Or chase to finish off a low opponent. And you’ll have burrow up soon again since you used it first, and didn’t have to waste any pulses comboing with burrow+epi cause you used burrow first. What if they have wards and you don’t know. They see you channeling behind the trees and come stun you. BKB+EPI+Blink is awesome. Now you don’t die on impact like normally. You don’t get stunned immediately once you’re in the heart of everything. Now you can use your stun once epi is over! Sure, some stuns can go through BKB…but not many. And not if you stun them first, or your teammates stun them. Or they use their stun on someone else. BKB also adds some hps. Some damage. It’s also an excellent escape mechanism. BKB + TP. Sandstorm + BKB + burrow, or walk out, or bkb until your blink is up again. BKB until your team can arrive are just some of the ways you can escape.

C.Other situational items

Hood Of Defiance is a very good item on Sandking if your enemy team has a lot of nukers. The 2 Ring of Regenerations earlier and Helm of Iron Will will allow you to stay in your lane much longer. Once you complete this item, you will be fearless of nukers (except for a few cases). If I intend on getting this item, I usually get this item after completing 2 Bracers/Bottle/Boots of Speed.

Radiance is a item that should only be gotten in public games or low levels IH games because you can’t wander around with wards in those games, right? You need damage in order to be effective in public games and Radiance gives you that. If you decide to get Radiance, farm it ASAP.

Linken Sphere is another good alternative to heart. Instead of providing mass hp, it gives more agi and int as well. Spell block is also useful in some cases for executing epicenter. Normally I will get heart, but this item is still up there if you want.

Guinsoo Scythe Of The Vyse is an item that can only be gotten when SandKing is farmed. Guinsoo normally should not come before survivability items, but there are exceptions like if an enemy SyllaBear is upstoppbale and you need Eul urgently to cycone his bear. Also, you must do fine tanking and also the one who can farm up and use eul’s well quickly.

D.Item not to get 101

BattleFury is a item that i just can’t figure out why people get it on SandKing. Sandking does not need cleave to farm due to him having Caustic Finale and Bottle is more than enough for mid and early game ganking. It does not help you in the tanking department either. The 65 damage is not that great either, both in price and the role of Sandking.

DPS items does not work well on sandking in anything above pubs level and non EM games. Having Sandking as tanker/initiator/ganker is far more beneficial to the team than Sandking going DPS build. Even in pubs/lower IH games, the only Dps item i will reccomend is Radiance. Only Radiance.

Refresher Orb in theory sounds like a great item on sandking. Since Epicenter is such a game-breaking ultimate, wouldn’t Refresher ensure a 200% chance to win any battle? In theory, yes. However, it’s impossible in an actual game. There’s no way you can get 2 Epicenters off without being interrupted. Besides, Epicenter+Blink+BKB+Burrowstrike+ Refresh +Epicneter, whose components consists of dagger and BKB is not needed since we are getting Dagger, thereby wasting your 3800 gold. Also, the MP needed to perform this is high which you will not be able to support it, unless you get Guinsoo. In conclusion, Refresher is a no-no on Sandking.

Arcane Ring loses to bottle in every aspect on Sandking. It is much more expensive, and doesn’t heal HP, which required for Sandking to stay on his lane. Sandking is actually a prioritized Bottle user. Most of the time, your teammates will be the one letting in to you in getting Bottle.

4.Gameplay Walkthrough

A.Start game

Grab a few set of tangos, head over to a lane along with another hero. Normally, there will be a hero like nevermore or viper soloing mid, thus you should go to the top or bottom lane. Sandking cant solo but his stun is very devastating in a dual lane along with another stun. A tri lane gives your team 2 solo hero, and sandking is a good hero in a tri lane long with another 2 stunners, Your team can even score a level 1 first blood on heros like QueenOfPain if you all overlap your stuns perfectly. Here are the (seemingly) best heros for Sandking to lane with early game.

Leshrac the Malicious the Tormented Soul

Leshrac and Sandking rapes everything. He, when not soloing usually gets stun+lighning. He has huge range also, which can help to cover up your melee range early game. Lightning is a spammable skill with a 5 sec cooldown that will you etablish lane control early game. His AOE stun go hand in hand with your stun. Leshrac lighning, Sandking stuns, Leshrac stuns, Leshrac lighning again deals whole lot of damage to both heros in the lane. Epicenter can also be casted without fear due to leshrac stun.

Lina Inverse the Slayer

Lina is also a very good Lane mate for Sandking. He also has 1 AOE stun and a nuke, though the nuke cant be spammed like leshrac lightning and the cooldown is much longer. She also have a very powerful ultimate in the form of laguna blade, which she can use to kill the enemies? Pretty much the same as Leshrac.

++

Tri lanes

SandKing is a good hero in a tri lane due to its stun. A very good tri lane usually packs lots of stuns and can actually first blood at lvl 1. The best tri lane, with sandking inside, in my opinion would be Sandking and Lina or Leshrac, along with another stunner like Earthshaker, Vengeful, Anabarak and Sven. Sandking and Lina or leshrac is already a deadly dual lane, and with another stunner in the lane, the result will be devastating.

B.Early game

Item progression
Boots of Speed
Empty Bottle
2 Bracers

Pair up with the partners mentioned in best partners section, and headover to top or bottom lane. Assuming you are paired with leshrac, and you are going a against a solo hero, you 2 can almost dominate any solo hero. If you are against a dual lane and the enemies are decent, like Sven and Lina, farm safely while letting leshrac spam his skills. Generally, there are perhaps no dual lane that can win Sandking+Leshrac or lina except for maybe NA + lina or leshrac. If you find your yourself against a tri lane, stay as far as possible. Dont go for creep kills/denies and let leshrac get creep kills while using lighning from afar.

When you hit lvl 5 or 6, you and leshrac can start to get kills if you coordinate with each other. Lighning, burrowstrike, split earth, lighning and watch your enemy die. If you want to be mean, add in epicenter as well. You can also find solo kills. Just use normal burrowstrike/epicenter on heros like leshrac & lina(long casting time of stun), tinker, nevermore.

If another of your lane is in need of help of gank, go and gank the enemies to ensure that your ally do not lose out in creep kills. Approach from fog, use burrowstrike, other ally use stun and kill. Sandking is 1 of the best gankers in the game, therefore he must gank. If no lanes are in need of help, then just continue staying in your lane and thing like that.

Quickly farm up to Bottle/boots/2 bracers in this order and you should get it around lvl 10, and once you get bottle, you can start gank more efficently. If you get ganked though, use burrowstrike up hills or down hill to escape, and sandstorm to delay time if they dont have Aoe spells. Burrowstrike+teleport owns. Also, try not to get into situations that you do not want to get into, like dying 10 times, before reaching level 5..

B.Mid game

Item progression
Dagger of Escape
Orbserver Wards

Get blink dagger asap. With blink you are a monster. By lvl 11, you already have lvl 2 ultimate and heros will start leaving thier lanes to gank. You should also do the same. Once you get your blink dagger, you can gank very efficently. Blink out from no where, stun, attack while your allies use stuns, and watch your team score increase by one. If heros battles occurs while ganking, then use blink+epicenter to wreck havoc and burrowstrike to chase any escaping heros. If your team have any combo that synergies with epicenter like blackhole, then ask Enigma to use blackhole first while you blink into the centre of the black hole and begin casting your epicenter. This will almost win any battles. Protect your carry hero. Save him whenever you can, even sacrficing your life to save him as the outcome of the battle while mostly be decided by carry heros.

Ward the whole map if possible. Buy as many wards as you can, helping you team to gain map control. Remember, map control is essential in winning every and any games. If there is a need to, let other heros farm the creep waves while you farm the neutrals. It is far more beneficial to let other heros get tier 4 items than to let sandking get it. For more informations on neutral camps and creeps, refer to MrX Neutral Creep Guide
Basically mid game for sandking is to gank 24/7, and use epicenter in some team battles occuring at this point.

C.Late game

Item progression
Start on any of the extension items

Late game, the part of the game where pushes take place. A successful or unsuccessful push can often determine the outcome of the game. Do not get picked off in any way, because if one of your teamates are picked off, you will most likely lose the team battle, and that leads to losing the rax, and again leads to losing the game. Get the extension items so that you can help your team more. In team battle, you will be charging epicenter in some aread of the fog, and most of the time you will be the one initiating the battle, unless there are someone like Earthshaker on your team. Charge epicenter at a place covered with fog, then blink in. Epicenter will most likely do its job, and if you did not get your epicenter off, it is most likely that your team will lose, unless your team are considerably stronger.

Beware of hawk or wards and swap or global silence. Swap has 1200 range, and if hawk or ward spot you charging your epicenter, vengeful would just swap and stop your epicenter. Global silence also owns you, and be careful not to be spotted by them while you charge up your epicenter.

Roshan Raids will be happening more at this point since 1 death will easily cost a team the whole game. The first roshan spawn is weak, and if you decide to take it down, Quickly arrive there and kill the roshan as fast as possible and get out, hoping you did not get ganked. Leave the aegis to your carry hero. If the enemy team is roshaning, then go gank them, only if your whole team can make if there on time. Do not go in by yourself just to get killed.

Here are some heros that spells go hand in hand with sandking’s epicenter.

Darkterror the Faceless Void

One of the biggest problem of using blink+epicenter is the worry that the enemy unit might be at a different place after the 2 second casting time. Faceless’s Chrnosphere exactly removes that worry from sandking. While the enemies are trapped in Chrnosphere, they cant do anything, therefore you can easily execute your blink+epicenter combo as near to them as possible. Chrnosphere have a big AOE, so no worries about him unable to execute it properly. Although Sandking cant move upon entering the chrnosphere, the pulses will go off normally. Besides, Darkterror is also one of the best late game carries in the game, therefore being able to make up for your declining firepower as the game goes on.

Magnus the Magnataur

This has got to be Sandking best combo ally. Magnus’s Reverse Polarity sucks all enemies unti around him, as well as dealing minor damage and stunning them for 4 seconds. In other words, sandking can just walk right up to the group of heros, cast epicenter, and watch all the heros cry as they receive close range epicenter damage and unable to do anything about it. If Magnus is unable to succesfully affect all his enemies with Reverse Polarity, then use cookie cutter blink+epicenter while blinking as near the heros as possible.

6.Counters to Sandking

There are several ways to counter sandking. Early game, him along with someone along the lines of leshrac will wrecks most dual lanes. However, a lane with Nerubian Assasin and something along the lines of lina, if play right, have quite alot of chance to beat lanes such as sandking/leshrac. Mana burn cripples sandking and he just becomes a meele hero without mana. Their combo is just as deadly as sandking+leshrac combo. But since you will not have the mana to pull out the combo so…. A well played warlock might be able to solo them, but dont count on it, he will get underleveled most of the time.

Once sandking gets blink dagger, it is very hard to kill him unless you disable him till his death. He has blink burrowstrike and sandstorm to get away. Your best bet here will be using long lasting stuns to kill him. Buy wards constantly so that sandking and his other allies cannot gank you. Also, try to have some AOE spells so you can attack him while he is in sandstorm. Lastly, try not to let him get heart so that he cant tank as much.

In team battles, epicenter is espacially deadly when he get it off. The best way, perhaps only way to prevent him getting off epicenter is silencer’s global silence. If you happen to see him casting epicenter, either by wards or by beastaster hawk, immediately throw out silence, and sandking will be useless in team battles except for his stun.

To sum it up, nerubian assasin early game because of mana burn, Stuns and AOE spells mid game, and hawk and silencer late game.

Epicenter+blink combo
So, you have heard all the people around you talking about the infamous epicenter+blink combo which destroys everything in its path? Epicenter+blink combo is basically casting epicenter at a place covered with fog of war, then blinking in with epicenter activated. Basically, people use this method mainly because burrowstrike+epicenter is not viable due to stuns. This combo almost ensures a sure-proof plan for you to get epicenter into team battles. As i have already mentioned before, getting epicenter off in team battle is espacially gamebreaking.

Now onto topic, how do you execute blink+epicenter? Cast epicenter, count to 2 and blink? If thats your answer, then you will either waste epicenter completely by blinking too early or miss 15 out of 16 pulses by blinking too late. The best way to execute epicenter+blink is through the use of way point. Let me introduce you to waypoint.

So after reading this quote, I assume you should have at least some ideas on how to execute this combo. If you havent, then it goes like this..

1– Hide in a place covered with fog. Press shift and hold on to shift.
2– Cast epicenter while holding on to shift.
3– Manually click at blink dagger icon and click it at the spot you want to blink to.
4– Release shift button and you are done!!

Notes when using this combo. You must reach step 2 to 4 during the 2 second casting time. Also, another tip is to make sure that the enemies will stay at the same spot 2 second later. It is best to make sure that there are doing things (killing creeps to push) so that they can stand still for 2 seconds.

Burrowstrike+Tp combo
Another one of the classic combos. In order to perform this combo, the hero must have a skill that can travel over distance instantly into unexplored places (waveform/burrowstrike) or have a skill that enable a hero to disregard collision (Spectral Dagger). With burrowstrike being able to blink into unexplored places, it opens up a new possibility, thus leading birth to the burrowstrike+teleport combo on sandking.

Burrowstrike+teleport is basically the act of burrowstriking into a unexplored place, best if it cannot be seen by other heros, then using either teleport scroll or boots of travel to teleport back to away. This also mean that Boots of travel should always let you teleport away after a burrowstrike to unexplored area. It is mostly used to cheat death.

Burrowstrike+Epicenter combo
Burrowstrike+Epicenter.. Ahh The combo that is so simple, yet so devastating. Everytime you execute this combo successfully, you should get a kill, and if the enemies somehow walk near you while you use this combo, a double kill is almost ensured. This combo, adding in the amount of attack you can get while enemies are slowed, quickly adds up to about 1000 health taken off from your enemy health pool. As overpowered as it may seems, this combo have a major drawback, which is the enemy have normally 0.35 second to stop your epicenter.

Waypoint is not reccomended for this as once you miss burrowstrike, you will also waste epicenter. Burrowstrike and spamming ‘c’ is the way to go. Watch out for stunners as they might make you waste epicenter.

How to not waste an epic? You need to judge your opponents, obviously those with no disabling are the tasties victims, and we need to judge those with a disable/hold/stun… for example Lina.. she has a stun…. but it takes way long to cast.. so I would burrow epi her, what about Earthshaker? He has a set of stuns that have at least 0.5sec cast time… i would burrow epic him aswell!

However, if you want to be very sure about which heros can be burrowstrike+epicentered, refer to this list of all hero stats, descriptions and abilities. Normally, if the hero has a casting point of 0.4 seconds to be safe, you should be able to burrowstrike+epicenter the hero. Take for example, Luna. Although she have a nuke that can cancel epicenter, she has a casting point of 0.6 seconds. Therefore if you execute your combo properly, she will not be able to stop your combo.

I see a naga farming at 3 quater hp. Although she have song of siren and ensnare to stop epicenter, both of the skills have a notable casting time, so i decide to take the risk and try to burrowstrike and epicenter her to death. Therefore, I walk near to her and burrowstrike and epicenter her.she got stunned by the burrowstrike and i proceed to cast epicenter. Will it be successful?

Oh no. As expected,when naga becomes unstunned, she immediately spammed song of siren and put me to sleep, as shown in my status. Will i miss the kill or what? Will naga song of siren 0.5 second casting time still be able to stop epicenter, or is she unable to do so?

Luckily, the pulses went off and Naga got pawned while trying to escape.

However still, your best bet here is to get this off with a AOE silence, AOE stun ally. Tiny, Death prophet and Stealth assasin are just some examples. When you burrowstrike and prepare to cast epicenter, they cast their AOE silence or stuns so you can get epicenter off smoothly. This usually means a sure kill, and some times even double/triple kill. Have them with you when wanting to pull of burrowstrike+epicenter on ganked heros.. Silencer is perhaps the best ally in this aspect. Burrowstrike any hero that you dont like, have Silencer cast global silence and it is done.

Clearing creeps with caustic finale
At max level, when a creep with caustic finale dies, it will explode, dealing 270 damage to everything around it. This makes it a good farming skill, as you can easily creep neutrals easily. However, you can also clear a creep waves insanely fast with the raw power of burrowstrike and most importantly, caustic finale.

To clear creeps effectively, first, you need to make sure that the creeps are relatively close together, best if all of them are in caustic range. Next, burrowstrike them all. Make them clustered together so it is easier to burrowstrike them all at once. Now, hit the range creep once and it will exlode, affecting all the melee creeps as well. Hit one of the melee creep once again. If done right, it will explode, killing all the creeps , earning you well deserved experience and money. The best thing is, sandking dosent need item to be able to do this effectively, he only needs mana.

Here is an example of clearing creeps with caustic.

The AOE of Caustic Finale is 400.

The Last Stand
I rarely see people using this, perhaps only once or twice. Since after the 2 second casting epicenter, epicenter will go off normally, even if sandking is dead. This goes like this. If you are about to die in perhaps a teamfight, and you know you cant escape for some reason, then dont escape but instead help your teammate so they have a bigger chance in turning the tables around.

This means that, instead of running back to base when you are almost dead, turn around cast burrowstrike+epicenter or just epicenter depending on situation. In ganks, it is most likely that alot of them have used their disabling skills, so they cant stop epicenter. Casting epicenter along also have its benefits. A example will be a melee hero hitting you non-stop. Then you cast epicenter. He have 2 choices– Still trying to kill you or run as far away from you as possible. This might even lead to your escape sometimes. Last but not least, whether you should use this is subjective on your allies. If you have 3 allies hoping to finish off what you havent, by all means use this. But if you dont have, you will only waste epicenter.

Epicenter+Burrowstrike combo
I dont actually reccomend that you use this combo, even if you do not have dagger, as the animation that burrowstrike have will waste about half of your epicenter, but it is still up there if you want to use it.

Basically remember the part where i describe about the blink epicenter combo? This is the same as that, only difference is that instead of using blink as a transporting tool, it uses burrowstrike. Same as blink+epicenter, waypoint is the way to go. Hold on to shift, cast epicenter, and you have 2 seconds to use burrowstrike and click on the area you want to be transported to, before releasing shift button. Although this will waste almost half of your pulses, but you can still use it as you want to.

One thing to note about executing this combo is that when burrowstriking to the targetted place. DO NOT burrowstrike the hero. Which means, dont use burrowstrike to stun the hero, just use it as a transporting tool. Reason is because of burrowstrike mechanics. Burrowstrike render a unit invulerable when hit, which means the hero will not be affected by epicenter pulses during the 1 second. After he come down, he can be affected. However, burrowstrike animation coupled with the 1 second invulnerability, will almost make sure that the hero receieve only 1 or 2 pulses most. Therefore remember, do not stun the enemy using burrowstrike when executing this combo.

Epicenter using fog of war
Yes, epicenter using the infamous fog of war. This strategy, in simple words actually means that sandking cast epicenter in a place where the enemies cant see due to fog of war, and after the 2 seconds of epicenter casting time, the enemies walk right into you, therefore affected by the status of epicenter.

The first factor to use this combo is in a place where there is fog of war, where enemies cant see you till they are relatively close. This is mostly present in hills/higher terrains. Second factor is to make sure that the enemies WILL follow you into the area with fog, and they must be of a good distance behind you. By this, I mean that make sure the enemies wont have enough time to see you and take the nessasary precautions or is still far behind you even when epicenter is released.

So, how to make the enemies follow you? Best time is when you are left with a little hp and a hero is chasing after you. Walk up into some fog, cast epicenter, and give the hero a big surprise. Could also be that heros are ganking you though. Another tip is to cast epicenter as near as the place fog of war begins. This is because once they walk up the hill, they will have lesser time to react compared to a sandking casting epicenter far away from where fog begins.

Lane Control and Ganking
Lane Control? Sandking is a melee hero, therefore most of the people will guess that he dosent have much of lane control. They are actually wrong. Sandking has 2 main lane control spells, Burrowstrike and Caustic Finale.

Caustic Finale helps you harrass melee enemies alot, even if only 1 point put into it. Basically, just hit every creep in the wave, and whenever the meele hero try to last hit, he will have to recieve 90 damage. Reason why we did not get more points into it is because it simply pushes creeps too far.

Burrowstrike, coupled with a ring of basilus and a good lane partner, the result is devastating. Enemies will be always on their guard and whenever sandking comes forward to initiate the burrowstrike, they will move back. It is actually good since enemy being scared will normally result in Sandking’s team winning that lane If your enemy are just literally scared of you, then move yourself closer to their ranged creep. They then have 2 choices– to continue last hit and risked getting stunned by you or hugging tower 24/7. Hugging tower 24/7 will result in them losing alot of experience. If they use the first method, they burrowstrike them whenever you can and make them fear you.

Anyway, here is an exmaple of how devastating Leshrac+Sandking combo can be.

(1) Sandking and Leshrac decided to kill their enemies. Sandking initiate with burrowstrike(not shown)while leshrac use split earth. Vengeful was left with a little life.
(2) Sandking gives chase while waiting burrowstrike to cooldown. All these while, vengeful lanemate, QueenOfPain was attacking SandKing and Leshrac.
(3) However, Sandking by luck, killed Vengeful without the need of burrowstriking.
(4) They now turned and face QueenOfPain. Before QueenOfPain can blink, Sandking burrowstrike had already cooldowned and she was stunned from the burrowstrike. Leshrac follows with a split earth and QueenOfPain died with Leshrac and Sandking attacking her.
(5) Result? Sandking got a double kill.

Now, onto ganking. Normally sandking will have to initiate the gank with burrowstrike due to the 1 second delay enables allies to catch up. And also, Sandking stun have a short cooldown, so he can easily use it again. If sandking wants to initiate a large scale gank, then best way is using epicenter using blink+epicenter combo. Once sandking have dagger, he can try to intiate gank by blinking out from fog and burrowstrike without worrying about approach angles or use blink dagger as a chasing tool just in case enemy got away.

Wards Usage
First of all, I would like to introduce to you 1 item-orbserver wards, an essential item in every high level play. Just as wards are important, wards usage are more important as there is no point warding the fountain. Wards are more or less important in my build, therefore sit back and relax and lets discover the effectiveness of a simple yet gamebreaking item– orbserver wards.

Firstly, before we start, please take note that every team can buy 3 sets of orbserver wards initially. After buying these 3 sets, the wards will have a around 6 mins cooldown before you can buy another set. Next, Warding a higher terrain will give more sight than warding a normal terrain. Therefore, always ward a higher terrain.

Here are generally the most important places that you should keep warded most of the games. Also, when trying to push inside the enemies base, always place a ward outside immediately. You do not want to get caught inside, do you?

Here are some of the examples of how you should ward.

“The Other River”

The sentinal 3 waycrossway route

For more informations about warding, do visit praveenkumar guide to warding.

Looks like I have forgotten about Sentries wards, but I will mention it here. Countering map control is just as important as map control. However, I guess there isnt much tips to this except to pay attention to hero inventories for Observer wards and try to catch when they place them.

Mastering Burrowstrike
I added in this section afterall. Burrowstrike is an amazing, due to it having a blink-like effect thrown in. By saying this, i dosent mean that the stun is no good. It is relatively easy to hit a burrowstrike, unlike hook or elune arrow. However, here are still some ways to execute burrowstrike to perfection in each of the respective situations.

First thing to remember is, when aiming Burrowstrike, remember not to click on the enemy hero, because chances are you will miss him if he is running away. Instead, click a little in front of him, and you will land the stun. Also, if the enemy is travelling at a different angle from you, you need to click a little bit further in the direction he is travelling at. An example will be, lets say, a Zues is walking towards East direction and SandKing is facing south and attempts to burrowstrike Zues. Sandking therefore should aim his burrowstrike a little to the east direction to make sure his burrowstrike hits.

Despite me mentioning the 12th time about aiming burrowstrike behind your target, you musn not click too far behind your target. This is how people almost always miss their burrowstrikes. They cast it from too far away, and a juke is made in the time it takes SK to get in casting range. An important point is to make sure people don’t cast until they are sure they are in the 700 range. You should really get a screenshot of at least this range. SK 700 away from a target (cast now, click here), and then show the SK landing the stun. There is some good AoE on the sides of the burrowstrike, like impale, that helps you land the stun easier.

Here is an exmaple of the “straight burrowstrike”.

Others uses of BurrowStrike includes using it to dodge spells or escape. For dodging spell, it is relatively difficult and can only be done if you have around 0 delay. Immediately burrowstrike away seeing Sven fire his stun at you. Alternatively, you can also do so with blink dagger.

About using burrowstrike to escape, I have already mentioned it above. You can also use it in conjunction with blink for some impressive results. Sometimes you don’t have enough time to walk over to get in range to blink across a ledge, cliff, etc. because you’ll be killed before you make it. Burrowing to the spot you needed to walk to and immediately blinking is a very useful and quick way to get you that extra boost needed to use blink where you needed to. Burrow will also help you dodge some hits/spells. Great way to counter blinkers chasing you, because even if you blink away with dagger they can blink right along with you, but if you burrow+blink you essentially have two blinks…and they have a much lower chance of knowing where headed after the burrow. Easy to deceive someone if you burrow into some trees and then blink somewhere else further away.

Happy mastering burrowstrike!

8.Replays

Played by SK.kWom from SK Gaming
This is a replay of kwom playing sandking in the recent TFL playoffs, against VP. This is a nice replay because whenever VP and SK meets, it will be a nice game. VP won prime defending 6 while SK is mostly rated as one of the top 3 teams in the world. Kwom’s amazing wards usage proved important time to time, as they managed to foresee ganks as well as picking off various heros. Kwom also always help the lanes who are in need of help, and also letting other more item dependant heros farm most of the map in mid game, which in turn lead to SK winning the game. This replay perfectly showcases how strong sandking is as a ganker, and how fearful he can be in team battles, as well as teaching people like me how to play Sandking to its fullest potential

TFL_Playoffs_Round_1___VP_vs_1_._SK_Game_1.w3g ( 1.38mb )
Number of downloads: 1282

Played by M.Addmiration from Virtus.Pro
A replay of Admir from VP playing SandKing in the finals of prime defending 7 against MYM.Dota. Both teams are only 1 win away from the championships, so whoever win this game will be the champions. Early game, admir laned with vigoss’s sven against slahser infamous tinker, but the dual stun lane proved too much for slahser to take it. VP outganked MYM pretty badly, and most credits goes to vigoss and admir for their amazing play. However, h4nn1- faceless was pretty farmed, so MYM still have hope. Although admir did well in both the laning phase and ganking phase, he did best, perhaps at 2 of the team battles held. He landed 2 mega killer epicenters, around the 50th and 70th minute mark, and it was one of the main factors in VP win over MYM.

Nova_SK_TDA.w3g ( 571.3k )
Number of downloads: 502

Last but not least, I will like to say that sandking is a very good hero, for both begginers and professional dota players. Hope that my guide help you all understand the basics of this hero. Thanks to my clan and my buddies in battlenet also for supporting me in everything.

Last but not least, special thanks to
1) GuyOverThere07 for his awesome review.
2) _MadCat_ for his various suggesions and ripping off 2 of his pictures.
3) IateGodzilla for helping me with the various spelling errors.
4) Nova for letting me use his replay.
5) SK-Gaming, Virtus.Pro, sP[Palit]Kow3 and MYM Dota since i used their replays.
6) All the people who gave contructive comments